Month: September 2009

A reader writes:

As someone like you trying to find and hold a shrinking "middle ground" on a battlefield of true believers, one metaphor I like — reflecting my technogeek roots — is that of signal processing: People like you and me believe that there is something that precedes our material world, both temporally and metaphysically; and further that we can on occasion glimpse or "feel it". In other words, there is a Signal, though it can get corrupted, become "noisy" and open to many imperfect interpretations — as it is mediated through limited human understanding, powerful egos, primate pack dynamics and political maneuvering.

The militant atheists, a la Dawkins, insist (with no real evidence) that there is no signal.

The fundamentalists and literalists insist (with poor evidence and poorer reasoning skills) that there is no noise, only their own One True Signal.

To me the most fertile ground for intellectual and spiritual exploration is the effort to recover the signal from the noise. It seems to require humility and patience, two assets largely devalued in today's culture.

Christianity has its saving graces:

Camp Barnabas from Steve V on Vimeo.

Ronald Bailey sums up a new paper by Gregory Paul in the journal Evolutionary Psychology:

Paul argues that evidence strongly shows that as socioeconomic conditions improve secularism/atheism increases. Paul is a thorough-going progressive who fully endorses the economic security policies found in most western European countries. According to Paul, religious belief remains more prevalent in the United States largely because of Americans experience higher levels of economic and social insecurity than do the citizens of other rich countries. Paul asserts that the fact that secularism increases with perceived economic and physical security undercuts the argument that religious belief is natural (genetic) to human beings.

Mark Changizi suggests one theory:

Human movement has been conjectured to underlie music as far back as the Greeks. As a hypothesis this has the advantage that we have auditory systems capable of making sense of the sounds of people moving in our midst – an angry stomper approaching, a delicate lilter passing, and so on. Some of these movements trigger positive emotions – they conjure up images of pleasant activities – while others might be automatically associated with fear or anxiety.

Bob Wright usefully and civilly lays out the misrepresentations in Jerry Coyne's attack on The Evolution of God:

Here is a partial list of false or misleading things Jerry Coyne says about my book The Evolution of God in his review of it in The New Republic. I want to emphasize that I think these are innocent mistakes. I have no reason to believe he intentionally misrepresented my argument. Indeed, his errors are of a kind that most of us have committed under deadline pressure or under the influence of deep intellectual passions. Nonetheless, his misrepresentations are collectively significant, because together they form the foundation of most of his criticism of my book. Once you correct them, his critique basically collapses. If Coyne wants to write a devastating review of my book—and there can be little doubt that he wants to—he’s going to have to start over.

Coyne responds to Bob's defense:

[A]t the end of his book, Wright finally grapples with the crucial question of whether God, or a god-like force, really exists.  He admits that he’s not sure whether it does, because he’s “not qualified” to answer that question. (He doesn’t tell us who is.)  But his retreat doesn’t square with all the “evidence” that he’s given to buttress the faith of believers. I described Wright’s bizarre admission at the end of my review precisely because he avoids it until the end of his book. Going through The Evolution of God, the reader continually gets the impression that Wright really believes what he’s saying.  But then we discover that, on the most crucial question of all, Wright ultimately punts.  Rather than hiding Wright’s equivocation about God: I singled it out as the culmination of my review, precisely to underscore that The Evolution of God ultimately appears as an exercise in cynicism.

Paul Bloom compares the pitfalls of short-term and long-term decisions:

People who succumb to short-term impulses often do awful things, such as driving drunk or beating up their children. They would better off if their long-term selves had control, and could block and distract these short-term choices. But often the situation is flipped, and it’s the long-term self that’s misguided. It can become committed to belief systems that have immoral consequences. Terrorism and genocide, for instance, are typically deliberate choices, not acts of passion; it’s the long-term self that’s the guilty one. Indeed, people often have to force themselves to commit terrible acts; they have to work to defy the natural and legitimate moral impulses of their short-term selves.

Kind of like the distinction between a battlefield moment of abuse of prisoners, and a systematic program to torture and abuse them, monitored by a bureaucracy and authorized by the president.

Panjim, India, 10 am

There's an endearing collection of photographs over at The Big Picture. Happy Sunday.

From this month's Harper's Index: "Chance a U.S. household that owns a Prius also owns an SUV: 1 in 3." Ryan Sager is unsurprised:

It would surprise you, if you didn’t read this blog and already know that we’re constantly calculating the trade-off between being able to see ourselves as good people and the cost of engaging in all that non-advantageous goodness. Already own an SUV? Soothe your conscience with a hybrid. Already own a hybrid? You’ve been good! You deserve that SUV! Welcome to being human.

Stanley Fish writes about the religious tradition that condemns curiosity:

[The curious] have no power of self-control because they have no allegiance — to a deity, to human flourishing, to community — that might serve as a check on their insatiable curiosity. (Curiosity is inherently insatiable; its satisfactions are only momentary; there is always another horizon.) In short, curiosity — sometimes called research, sometimes called unfettered inquiry, sometimes called progress, sometimes called academic freedom — is their God. The question, posed by thinkers from Aquinas to Augustine to Newman to Griffiths, is whether this is the God — the God, ultimately, of self — we want to worship. Given the evidence…the answer would seem to be yes.

Peter Lawler adds his thoughts.The Dish considers curiosity more virtue than vice. But then we would, wouldn't we?

(Photo by Iain Crawford. More here. Hat tip: Nerdcore)